


Control

by paperxcrowns



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Broken Bones, Bruce Wayne's C+ Parenting, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, dick is a social worker in this because i said so, he just needs to respect his kid's boundaries, he's not a bad parent but he isn't the best, he's trying so ig that's something :/, no beta we die like jason todd, once again this is more angst than hurt, she cool, title from control by halsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperxcrowns/pseuds/paperxcrowns
Summary: Dick got heavily injured during patrol and is getting sick of Bruce being a helicopter parent and treating him like a glass sculpture, fragile and delicate and breakable. Dick was more than capable of taking care of himself.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195988
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	Control

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraKant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/gifts).



> this is the prompt Will Not Be A Victim from my bthb card, requested by Aurora. this is for you my friend *tips hat*

There had been a point in Dick’s life where he had wished Bruce would pay more attention to him. Of course he’d wanted that. He’d been a traumatized teenager who’d known unconditional love from dead parents and a faltering and hesitant love from Bruce. Of course he’d wanted Bruce to pay more attention to him when he was Dick more than when he was Robin.

Of course it had crushed him when Bruce had practically kicked him out when he’d turned eighteen after firing him from Robin. Of course it had hurt when he’d given Robin-- the last memory of his parents-- to another kid without telling Dick. Of course it had hurt when he’d found out that Jason had been adopted through the newspaper no less.

But that was something kids were allowed to want from parents. Love and their undivided attention. Dick was twenty-four and had his own apartment in Blüdhaven, working as a social worker.

There had been a point where he’d needed Bruce’s attention. He didn’t need that now. He was an adult. He didn’t need Bruce to look after him anymore. Dick had been doing that well before Bruce had kicked him out already. He was managing perfectly well on his own. Had been until Jason’s death.

Then, Bruce wouldn’t stop pestering him with calls to make sure he was doing good (translation; for Bruce to make sure Dick was still alive) and pleas to come back to Gotham and the Manor.

It got worse with every injury Dick got that required Alfred or Leslie. And since Tim had become Robin, Dick had been showing up at the Manor more and more often, occasionally even staying the weekend just to hang out with Tim.

Dick was tired of the same argument. And he knew Bruce cared, but he also knew it was for his own sanity that he wanted Dick to be at the Manor. 

It boiled down to this in the end: Bruce didn’t trust Dick to keep himself safe.

Dick closed his eyes when the knock came at the door again.

“Chum?” Bruce called from the other side. “Will you join us for breakfast.”

It wasn’t a request. It was that parent way of making it sound like he had the option to get out of his room or not. Dick would greatly appreciate it if Bruce could stop treating him like he was still a teenager and not a functioning adult.

With a deep sigh, he sat up in bed. “Yes. I’ll be down, B.”

He waited until the footsteps receded before actually getting out of bed. 

The moment he was cleared by Leslie to drive and go back to work, he was leaving Gotham. Dick was more than someone who could get injured, Bruce just simply and clearly didn’t understand that.

* * *

“Dick, you are _not leaving,”_ Bruce snapped. “Leslie barely cleared you. You need more _rest.”_

Dick breathed in deeply. Tim didn’t deserve to be subjected to this argument. _Again._

“No,” he said calmly, gripping his car keys so tightly in one hand he could feel the metal biting into his palm. “What I need is to get away from you.”

Bruce flinched. “Dick, please.”

Alfred was standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen, watching the argument silently, ready to interfere if things got too heated. He wouldn’t need to; Dick was going to keep this quiet for the kid’s sake.

“B, I have a _life._ I’m an adult. I get injured all the time.”

Bruce hesitated. Dick didn’t. He spun on his heels, ready to walk out the door and drive back to Blüdhaven. Yes, he’d been caught in the aftershock of a bomb in a nearby building and had broken his leg, collarbone, and fractured his skull when he’d hit the ground and had been unconscious for three days. But this wasn’t the worst he’d gotten before. 

Dick was fine and Bruce needed to get his shit together instead of projecting his fears onto Dick.

Bruce grabbed Dick’s wrist and he almost twisted out of the grip. He didn’t. He stopped walking, but kept his back turned to Bruce.

“You fractured your skull, Dick. You really can’t be putting yourself in danger--”

Dick spun around, both amazed and furious at Bruce’s sheer _audacity._

He laughed. “Are you serious right now?” he demanded, his wrist still held tightly in Bruce’s hand. “Are you seriously telling me what to do as if I don’t already know? I am not a teenager anymore, Bruce. I am not nine years old anymore.” Dick tried to keep his voice level despite the anger flaring in his chest and clawing up his throat. “You had your chance to keep me safe, but instead you chose to kick me out of the house.” The only sign that Dick’s words had affected Bruce was the way he pressed his lips together in a thin line. “This is only the consequences of your actions. Let me leave.”

“You are injured,” Bruce said evenly, his eyes glinting fiercely.

That only made Dick angrier. Bruce had _no right_ being angry. He was not entitled to Dick giving him whatever he asked for. He was not entitled to Dick’s presence at the Manor.

Dick pulled out of Bruce’s grasp. “I’m fine,” he snapped. “Can you _please_ leave me the hell alone? I don’t need you breathing down my neck all the fucking time. I can take care of myself.”

Bruce’s face twisted. “Dick, you’re--”

“I get injured all the time. I am an _adult_ , Bruce. I don’t need you to treat me like a victim.”

Dick shoved past Bruce and stormed towards the front door. He couldn’t stay in the Manor a second longer. The air was too stuffy and suffocating.

“Where are you going?” Bruce called, following Dick.

“Home, Bruce,” Dick said, hand on the door. His body was shaking with anger. It took all he had to stop himself from punching Bruce in the face. “I have work on Monday.”

Dick slammed the door in Bruce’s face, drowning out his protests. The fresh air and quiet of a Sunday morning in Bristol were a relief after the Manor. 

Dick didn’t even look back when he climbed in his car and buckled his seatbelt. He pulled out of the driveway and waited until he was well out of Bristol and far enough away from the Manor before pulling into the shoulder of the road to calm himself. Bruce had kicked him out of the Manor. Bruce had adopted Jason but not him. Why was Bruce only now mother henning Dick? 

He was twenty-four, it was more than too late for that. Dick had his own life now. The only reason he stopped by the Manor nowadays is to hang out with Tim, because he’d never gotten the chance to do that with Jason when-- when he’d still been alive.

Dick slammed his fist onto the wheel. He was tempted to pick up Tim after school and take him to Blüdhaven with him. Screw Bruce for giving another kid the Robin mantle.

Dick breathed deeply, forcing himself to calm down. 

It took several minutes before Dick pulled back onto the road and turned on the radio.

* * *

The phone ringing the second Dick crawled back through his apartment window after patrol should have been an automatic red flag. 

It was the apartment phone, not his personal cell, because he always kept that one on silent. He’d learned the hard way that phone calls at the wrong time could put him in a very sticky situation very quickly.

He groaned, peeling off the domino mask and limping over to the phone. He just wanted a hot bath and his bed. Work had been tough and patrol even harder. He’d have to take it easy with his dislocated knee, which automatically put him in a sour mood at the idea of leaving Blüdhaven alone. Unlike Gotham, which had Batman, Robin, Oracle, and Spoiler, Dick was completely alone here, and the criminals knew it. Days off meant free reign of the city.

“Hello?” he asked snappishly. The only people who called him on this phone were strangers who didn’t have his personal number. He could afford to snap. “I’m busy right now--”

“Dick, are you okay?” Bruce asked.

And that just made Dick’s aggravation skyrocket. “What the actual hell, Bruce?” Dick snapped. “I’m busy. You can text my phone.”

“You weren’t answering,” Bruce replied calmly. “I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

Dick tensed at the sound of that. That really didn’t sound good. “I’m fine,” he said. “I have things to do, Bruce. Stop spying on me.”

“I’m not--”

Dick actually scoffed at that, tossing his domino mask onto the countertop. “Oh, sure. So you call me the  _ second _ I enter my apartment and ask me if I’m okay and you expect me to play along? You raised me. You aren’t the only detective around here, Bruce. Stop spying on me.”

Dick slammed the phone down and dropped his head in his hands. He wanted to scream. He wanted to drive out of Blüdhaven and into the nearest field and scream for an hour. Everyone was treating him like a fucking victim and Dick was slowly losing his mind. 

First order of business, Dick reached down and unplugged the phone. Telemarketers and Bruce could go fuck themselves, Dick wasn’t keeping that cursed phone plugged in any longer.

“He chipped my house,” he muttered incredulously. “That bastard  _ chipped my house.” _

He laughed in disbelief, fighting the urge to break his house phone right then and there. Social workers weren’t paid nearly enough for him to afford another one, he told himself. And this really wasn’t something worth wasting money on.

“Fucking bastard,” he muttered under his breath.

Dick took off the top half of his suit as he made his way to his bedroom and flipped on the lights. He switched his suit out for a clean shirt and sweatpants. He still took the time to wrap a brace around his injured knee to avoid any more damage before going back out into his living room.

The bath would wait. Dinner would wait. Wrapping his wounds would wait. The paperwork for tomorrow could wait. Dick was going to find every single camera and microphone implanted in his fucking apartment by Bruce  _ fucking _ Wayne before the night was over.

Bruce was a detective, but so was Dick. After all, he’d been Robin for years. He was the leader of the Titans. It was funny how often Bruce seemed to forget that Dick was almost a good a detective as him. 

Just because it worked in his favor, did not mean it was any less infuriating. 

It took him two hours to dig up every single microphone in his apartment. He half considered blocking Bruce and even deleting his number, but seeing how far he was willing to go to keep an eye on Dick, he decided against it. 

Instead he took a picture of the cameras and microphones and sent it to him before crushing every single one of them. 

He was about to finally,  _ finally  _ take that goddamn bath he more than needed when Bruce called him. 

Dick was this close to asking Clark if he could move in with him just to piss off Bruce.

“Bruce,” he said, not even mustering the ability to be angry anymore. He was just tired of this. He just wanted Bruce to stop. He didn’t want to talk to him anyway. “What?” 

“Dick, I’m--”

Dick rubbed his hand over his face. It was four in the morning and Dick was tired. 

“You’re not sorry,” he said. “You got caught, so you’re apologizing, but we both know you’re not sorry.”

Bruce’s silence spoke volumes. He’d never been the best at communicating, but Dick had learned that silence often spoke much louder than words ever could. Bruce’s silence was more telling than when he spoke.

“Bruce. I’m going to talk. And you’re not going to interrupt me. I’m tired. I want to take a bath. And I have a mountain of paperwork to do for a case at work. I’m not dealing with you tonight. You’re going to listen and you’re not going to talk, and by God, you are going to get it through your  _ thick head _ once and for all that I am  _ not _ Jason.”

Dick collapsed on the couch, finally giving his throbbing knee some relief.

“I’m not Jason. Tim is not Jason. Tim is fourteen and I’m turning twenty-five in two months. I’ll tell you again. I have a job. I have an income. I have a city to protect. I’m not going to remain a kid in need of your protection forever. I can’t--” Dick swallowed thickly. This was harder to articulate than he’d anticipated. “I can only let you invade my privacy so many times before I stop wanting to see you or talk to you,” he said, his voice hardening around the edges. “You can call me when you’re ready to respect me as an adult. You know I don’t want pity. And you know I am not a victim. I’m not a victim of my circumstances and I am  _ not _ your project to make you feel better about losing Jason. Spy on me again and this is going to be our last conversation.”

He hung up on Bruce and dropped his phone on his chest and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.    
“Fucking bastard,” he muttered. 

He was never having this conversation with Bruce ever again. If Tim wasn’t Robin and if Dick didn’t like the kid, he’d have no qualms staying in Blüdhaven and cut off all contact with Bruce. He was unbelievably grateful that he was going on mission with his team this weekend, because he was going to punch something if he kept thinking about Bruce all week. 

He groaned, rolling off the couch. So much for taking a relaxing bath, he thought bitterly. He could still cash in four hours of sleep if he cleaned and bandaged all his wounds fast enough, so at least he could count on sleep. 

Fuck Bruce and all his repressed emotional baggage. Dick wasn’t there to be his therapist.

Dick limped to the bathroom, ready to end this terrible day at last. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can check out my [bingo card ](https://blas-ph-emy.tumblr.com/post/644855929256427520/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo<bingo) on tumblr!


End file.
